


hard to think that a heart can forget

by ohmcgee



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, maximum angst, minimal porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4813406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows he shouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hard to think that a heart can forget

**Author's Note:**

> it's been about 8,000 years since I've written anything so I'm sorry if this is rusty and gross.

“You know you shouldn’t,” Roy says casually, just as Jason’s fingers reach the doorknob. 

Jason pauses, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Then he opens the door and walks out.

 

: : :

 

He knows he shouldn’t. But he shouldn’t do a lot of things he does. Shouldn’t let Roy spend every last cent they have on spare parts, shouldn’t have left Gotham without so much as a _see ya_ to Barbara. Hell, he shouldn’t even be _alive_ , but here he is, breathing air, standing outside the community center that Gabby told him Bruce Wayne was volunteering at, hands shaking so much he can’t even light his cigarette. 

“Now, you look smart enough to know those things can kill you,” a voice says behind him and Jason drops his cigarette, goes completely still before he finally turns around and looks Bruce in the eye.

He’s smiling, a big, thick beard covering his face, and he’s balancing about three boxes on top of each other and trying to look at Jason around them and -- it’s all wrong. He’s looking at him like he’s never seen him before. 

Jason knew, he _knew_ \-- but still. His heart feels like it falls somewhere down to his knees and suddenly his ribcage feels like it’s made out of steel, heavy and tight and squeezing all the air out of his lungs. 

“Let me help you with those,” he says, just to have something else to do, and takes two of the boxes from Bruce’s stack and follows him into the center, where a pretty redhead dressed like a hippie kisses Bruce on the cheek. 

“I’ll just,” Jason says, his throat closing up on the last syllable and Bruce gives him a strange look right before he turns on his heels and bolts out of there as fast as he can. When he gets into the alley he doubles over, loses his breakfast and lunch next to a dumpster where it looks like a homeless person slept last night. 

When he stumbles back into the apartment hours later, reeking of cigarettes and whiskey and three different types of cologne, Roy doesn’t say anything. Jason doesn’t know if he’s thankful for that or not, so he kicks off his boots and passes out on the couch next to him, falls asleep with Roy’s fingers in his hair, some Japanese cartoon on the tv, and Bruce’s gorgeous, blank eyes haunting his dreams. 

 

: : :

 

Roy doesn’t say anything the next time he goes out, just says, “Hey, pick up some WD-40 on your way home,” but Jason knows he knows. 

Just like he knows he shouldn’t go back. It’s not even that he shouldn’t go because it feels like dying all over again seeing Bruce look at him like he’s a stranger. No, they each got a fucking earful from Alfred about how unstable Bruce’s state is, how seeing any of them could trigger memories and how they don’t know what remembering things might do to him. 

He shouldn’t go because it’s potentially dangerous, but fuck, what about their lives is ever _not?_ And that first time Bruce didn’t seem to know who he was from Adam, so it’s apparently not going to be _him_ who shakes Bruce’s memories loose. Dickie, sure. Dick could probably come down here and do a little cartwheel and smile that blindingly bright smile and say something stupid and Bruce’s memories would probably all come rushing back to him like in some Hallmark made for tv movie. Or maybe the little demon brat, his actual blood, the one he went to hell and back for. Or --

“You’re back,” Bruce says, startling Jason out of his melancholic thoughts. He’s carrying a crate of oranges this time and nods to the back corner. “Mind grabbing another crate? Local farmer’s market donated a ton of produce today, isn’t that great?”

“Yeah,” Jason says, swallowing down the panic in his throat, trying to school something that looks like a smile onto his face. “That’s great.”

 

: : :

 

That night he comes home smelling only of booze, with a black eye and a cut on his cheek and one of his forehead that looks like it might need stitches. 

“Jay,” Roy says softly, frowning as he pushes Jason’s hair away from his forehead and puts a butterfly bandage over the cut for the time being. “You forgot my WD-40.”

“I know,” Jason says and lays his head on Roy’s stomach. He means to laugh but it just comes out as something sad and broken.

“You gotta stop,” Roy says even softer, carding his fingers through Jason’s hair. 

Jason makes a sound that sounds like a hiccup, or maybe a sob. “I know.”

 

: : :

 

Any time they aren’t doing a job for someone, Jason usually ends up at the community center. And the thing is, after a while, he actually starts to like it. He makes friends with a couple of the regular kids, especially the ones from his old neighborhood, takes mental notes when they mention the kind of shit that he can take care of for them, like pimps and drug dealers, shady landlords trying to triple their rent, that sort of thing. 

He doesn’t talk to Bruce that much, just sort of watches him as he does his thing -- his _new_ thing, smiling and laughing and talking to kids, telling jokes and -- Jason actually chokes on his oatmeal cookie, the one that Alfred sent with Bruce today for the kids -- bouncing toddlers on his knee. 

It’s so fucking weird to see him like that, but after a while, after seeing how _happy_ Bruce is, Jason wonders if maybe...this is better. Bruce looks about ten years younger. He’s actually getting more than two hours of sleep per night. He doesn’t look haunted by the ghosts of his parents or of partners that died on his watch, of a child he had to bury too soon. And even though Jason wants to hate the redheaded lady that keeps kissing his cheek and linking her fingers together with Bruce’s, Jason can’t deny that she makes him happy and that -- despite how long Jason spent hating Bruce, he still can’t take that away from him.

So, no matter how much it kills him, Jason decides Bruce is better off this way, better off _not_ remembering. He gets to start over. Jason’s a little jealous, if he’s being honest. He died and came back and even then he didn’t get to start over. He remembered _everything_ and it hurt so much he tried to burn his home to the ground and take everyone else with him. He can’t imagine how freeing it must be to be wiped clean, to be able to have a completely different life, one without death and chaos permeating every facet of it. He thinks maybe this is what Bruce deserves, after protecting this city for so long.

“Keep up the good work,” he says to Bruce one Thursday afternoon. It’s the only kind of goodbye he can come up with, the only one he can really handle. 

“Tomorrow’s the basketball tournament,” Bruce says, smiling as he stabs a straw into a juice box for a little kid who can’t be more than five or six. “You should come.”

“Yeah,” Jason lies. “I’ll be there.”

 

: : :

 

They stay busy for almost two months, tracking down monsters in Mexico and India, one in Alaska. They take the jobs no one else wants, the ones no one else is really qualified for, and they have fun doing it. They get paid _generously_ and Roy spends it just as fast, but Jason doesn’t care because they’re doing good, having fun, and he hardly has any time to think about Gotham. 

Still, they end up back there because of some deal Roy wants to make to get some new parts for a new weapon he’s building and while he’s out doing that, Jason goes for a walk.

He checks on his favorite girls on the corner, drops what little cash he still has left on him by Marguerita, the old lady who feeds all the orphans in the neighborhood, and after that he means to head back home, drink a few beers and wait for Roy to get back so they can get out of this city full of ghosts. 

“Jason?” a voice asks as he’s lighting a cigarette in front of the 7-11. 

Fuck. 

“Oh. Hey, Bruce,” Jason says when he looks up, stomping his cigarette out immediately. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Bruce says. “I haven’t seen you around in a while. I was afraid something had…”

For some reason, Bruce can’t seem to finish his sentence, so Jason jumps in. “Nah, just had to go out of town for a while.”

“Oh,” Bruce says. “Well, I was just about to go for a coffee. Would you like to join me?”

“Uh,” Jason says. “I should probably --”

“I’ve really missed seeing you around the center,” Bruce says and just like that, Jason feels every ounce of his resolve slip away. 

“I know a place,” Jason says. “Best coffee in Gotham, but most people don’t know ‘cause it’s not in some rich, whiteboy neighborhood.”

Bruce laughs and Jason grins. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“My prince,” Bruce says dryly and this time Jason laughs, feels lighter and better than he has in months. 

“Come on, whiteboy,” Jason says. “Let me give you the tour.”

 

: : :

 

“I was one of those kids once,” Jason tells him. They’re having coffee two blocks away from the safe house that Bruce doesn’t remember that Jason has. 

“Oh?” Bruce asks. He’s sipping on a caramel macchiato, which he never even would’ve fucking _touched_ before and Jason’s pissed that an overpriced coffee drink is giving him so many damn feelings. “Did you live here then, in this neighborhood?”

And again, it feels like all the air gets sucked out of Jason’s chest. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this to himself. It just keeps hurting, every fucking time. And he still keeps coming back, keeps poking at that wound, making sure it’ll never heal. 

“Yeah,” he says, picking all the seeds off the top of his pumpkin muffin. “Not sure if I'd’ call it a neighborhood exactly, but yeah.”

He looks up and Bruce is staring at him, holding his tiny coffee cup in hands that know just where to snap a bone to make it a clean break, hands that are calloused and scarred from things he can’t remember, hands that Jason knows better than his own. 

“Well, you seem to have made something of yourself despite all of that,” Bruce says softly, _kindly_ , and Jason wants to take the coffee cup out of his hands, smash it against the wall, wants to turn the table over, wants to kiss him so hard his mouth bleeds from it. 

“Yeah,” he says instead, looks out the window. “Had a little help with that.”

Bruce looks at him across the table, looks like he’s about to ask another question that Jason shouldn’t be answering, so Jason gets up, digs a couple of dollars out of his pocket and leaves it on the table. “You wanna get out of here? If I hear another Taylor Swift song I going to break out into hives.”

Bruce laughs -- _laughs_ \-- and it’s so genuine, so _Bruce_ , that Jason stops breathing for a minute, almost leans into him and wraps his arms around him and tells him _everything._

“I believe,” Bruce says, smiling down at Jason. "That there was a mention of a tour. "

 

: : :

 

They walk a few blocks, then take the bus for a few more. Jason shows Bruce where he grew up, tells him not much has changed, really, how the gentrification project the city tried out a few years ago mostly backfired on them. 

He honestly tries to stick to the less seedy parts, just wants to show Bruce how bad it really gets for some kids. It’s not that late and they stick to well lit areas for the most part, Jason rambling on and on about his shitty childhood, making bits and pieces up as he goes along, but staying true to the story for the most part. 

Jason doesn’t even hear it first, too lost in his own head, too many memories resurfacing, and not all of them even having to do with Bruce. He doesn’t hear the woman screaming until Bruce takes off.

“Shit,” Jason mutters and puts out his cigarette to chase after him. 

When he gets to Bruce it’s worse than he thought it would be, a woman surrounded by four -- no five -- thugs, all wielding some kind of weapon. Jason’s adrenaline spikes as well as his anxiety. Bruce isn’t prepared for this. He doesn’t even know how to defend himself and he’s standing there facing down a guy with a huge fucking knife and one with a baseball bat, armed only with his stupid courage and good nature. 

“Bruce,” Jason says, stepping in front of him. “Get out of here. I’ve got this.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Bruce says and Jason isn’t sure if he imagined it or not, but his voice sounds about two octaves lower than it did in the coffee shop. 

“Yes, you are,” Jason says and unsheathes one of his knives from his boots. “This is going to get ugly, so just --”

The skinny guy attacks before Jason can get the rest of the sentence out, catches Jason right in the mouth and Jason spits right in his face after that and then it’s on. Jason gets lost in the commotion, goes into fight mode: punch, block, duck, kick. He feels the solid press of Bruce’s back against his but doesn’t register what it means, just falls into the motions like they always have.

He hears bones crack, hears Bruce's ragged breathing, and after a few minutes of nothing but muscle memory taking over for both of them, they're both standing there staring at a pile of unconscious bodies. 

Bruce looks down at his shaking hands, a mixture of awe and horror crossing his face. The only time Jason ever remembers seeing Bruce's hands shake they were both naked and Bruce was saying for the tenth time, _are you sure?_

“Bruce,” Jason says. “We should --”

Bruce looks up at him, eyes wide and pupils dilated. “We,” he says and reaches out, brushes his thumb over Jason’s cheekbone, smearing the blood into his skin. “We were…”

Then it happens. Bruce stops talking and starts kissing him and his mouth is hard and bruising, just like it always was, just like Jason always _wanted_ it, and it’s muscle memory all over again, Jason clutching the front of Bruce’s shirt and dragging him closer, opening his mouth for him and letting him in, like he’d like Bruce crawl right under his skin if he wanted to.

“You,” Bruce says against his mouth, getting his hands around Jason’s waist and Jason shivers when he feels those calloused fingers slide over his skin under his shirt. “Jason --”

“Shh,” Jason says. “Just…” He kisses Bruce again, buries his hands in his hair and kisses him until they’re both out of air, until they have to pull away, panting and breathless. “Come with me?” He asks and Bruce just nods.

“Yes.”

 

: : :

 

Bruce looks curious when Jason lets him in the safe house, but he doesn’t say anything, just pulls Jason to him and gets his mouth back on him, sliding his hands up the back of Jason’s shirt, then pulls it off in one swift, fluid movement. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs as he presses a kiss to Jason’s collarbone. “I thought so the moment I met you.”

Jason wants to tell him _no_. You thought I was a little shit the moment you met me. He wants to tell him so, so many things and he wants to tell him nothing at all. 

Instead he lets Bruce kiss him everywhere and anywhere, lets Bruce take him to the bed Jason bought at the second hand store with the broken spring in the middle. His hands shake as he unbuttons Bruce’s shirt like it’s the first time and in a way, he supposes it is. He’s a different person than he was the first time they did this and so is Bruce. 

“When you,” Bruce says, sitting back on his knees to look down at Jason, slide his hands down Jason’s chest like he wants to learn every inch of his skin. “When you went away. I -- What I'm trying to say is,” Bruce says, pauses. “I’m sorry, this is --”

“Stop it,” Jason tells him, grabs one of his hands. “Don’t do that. Whatever you’re going to say, I promise you’ve I’ve heard weirder.”

Bruce smiles a little, brings Jason’s hand up to his mouth and kisses his knuckles, broken with dried blood on them from the fight earlier. “The times when I’m with you,” Bruce starts again, speaking slowly. “I don’t remember, not exactly. But it’s…”

Jason doesn’t do anything; doesn’t move, doesn’t even _breathe._

“I feel more like myself.” Bruce says. “Jason, were we --”

“Shh,” Jason says and pulls Bruce on top of him, kisses him again, tries to pour everything he wants to say and everything he can’t say into that one kiss. “Bruce, please?”

Bruce just looks down at him with those incredible eyes of his and says, “Yes.”

 

: : :

 

They fit together perfectly, even after all this time. Bruce may have forgotten everything, may have forgotten the reason he has so many scars and old wounds, he may have forgotten everything that makes him _him_ , but he hasn’t forgotten this, how to move inside Jason’s body, how to touch him to make him feel like he’s the only person in the world that matters, how to say his name again and again like a prayer and a curse all wrapped into one until Jason clings to him and breathes out his name into his shoulder and comes, dragging Bruce with him.

Afterward Bruce stays draped around him, something Jason never really let him do before, but this time he wants to hang onto him for as long as he can. They’re sweaty and sticky and neither one of them seem to mind or care at all. They just lie there for the longest time, matching each other breath for breath as a car alarm goes off somewhere down the street and a baby cries in the apartment below. 

“It’s not good, is it?” Bruce asks finally, his voice hot and sweaty against Jason’s shoulder. “The parts I don’t remember.”

Jason sighs. He shouldn’t tell him anything. He shouldn’t even _be_ here. “No,” he says. “It’s really not.”

They lie there like that for a few moments, Bruce breathing into his hair, his arm draped around Jason’s chest, until finally Bruce rolls Jason onto his back and leans down and kisses him, his palm flattened out over Jason’s heart, feeling the beat quicken beneath his fingertips.

“Don’t tell them yet,” he says, because he’s _Bruce._ He might not know he’s Batman, but he’s still a smart motherfucker, still knows that there are people watching him, worried about him. “Just -- I want to have this a little longer.”

“Okay,” Jason says, covering Bruce’s hand with his own, linking their fingers together.

He shouldn’t. Shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t promise Bruce something he knows he can’t keep, shouldn’t _want_ to keep Bruce this way, happy and safe and _his._

His whole life has been a list of things he shouldn’t have done. This might just be the one thing that makes up for all of the rest of them.

“As long as you want.”


End file.
